Chapter 4 - The Counter-Strike
Grant didn't leave through the front entrance.
Two building security officers escorted him and Celeste down the service elevator to the basement garage, away from the gathering crowd of reporters who had caught wind of the emergency board meeting.
Inside my private executive office, the air was quiet. I sat behind my walnut desk, the high-back leather chair providing a welcome support for my bruised spine.
Jonah stood by the window, watching the rainy street sixty-four stories below.
"They're going to run," Jonah said, leaning against the glass. "Grant’s personal jet account at Teterboro Airport was accessed twenty minutes ago. His attorney requested a flight plan to Zurich."
"They won't get to Zurich," I replied, opening my laptop. "I froze all joint financial accounts forty-five minutes ago under the corporate emergency fraud clause. They have less than ten thousand dollars in liquid cash available on their personal cards."
A sharp knock sounded at my office door. My corporate legal counsel, Elena Rostova, stepped into the room holding a thick stack of blue-bound legal folders.
"Evelyn," Elena said, her expression tight and focused. "The district attorney’s office just issued an arrest warrant for attempted first-degree murder and corporate sabotage based on the video evidence. But we have a tactical complication."
"What complication?" I asked.
"Grant’s uncle—Judge Richard Cross—just signed an emergency injunction from his home chambers," Elena revealed, slapping a document onto my desk. "He has frozen your voting rights pending a mandatory psychiatric evaluation, claiming you are suffering from acute post-traumatic psychosis resulting from the crash. Until that evaluation occurs, control of Crosswell passes to an interim trustee—a trustee appointed by Judge Cross."
I stared at the injunction paper. "He's using his judicial authority to buy Grant time to flee the country."
"Precisely," Elena said. "If the trustee takes control of the firm today, they can authorize the Apex Logistics funds transfer before the police can execute the arrest warrant. Grant will have fifty million dollars in a Swiss account before the jurisdiction issues are resolved."
Jonah turned away from the window, his gray eyes narrowing. "Where is Grant right now?"
"Our private security team tracked their sedan to the estate in Greenwich," Elena answered. "They’re packing."
"They aren't just packing," I realized, standing up despite the sharp pain in my side. "Grant keeps the paper bearer bonds for the Cross family trust in the wall safe at the Greenwich house. Fifty million dollars in untraceable paper assets."
"If he gets those bonds to a private airstrip, he vanishes," Jonah said. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "The police won't reach Greenwich in time with the jurisdictional paperwork Judge Cross threw in their way."
"Then we go to Greenwich ourselves," I said.
"Evelyn, you're injured," Elena warned. "Let the State Troopers handle it."
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"The State Troopers are bound by Judge Cross's emergency injunction until the appellate division overrides it tomorrow morning," I said, grabbing my dark raincoat from the rack. "Grant built his entire life on the assumption that I would always sit quietly in his shadow and let him take what was mine. It’s time I showed him what happens when the shadow fights back."
Jonah offered a rare, dark grin. "I'll drive."
